Brazil is up for the challenge of providing healthy and sustainable food to the world. Last week, our Director of International Relations, Ligia Dutra, went to Copenhagen, in Denmark, to share some of CNA’s experiences with stakeholders from around the world.
The seminar “Contributions of Brazil and Denmark to the challenge of providing sustainable food” gathered leaders from the government, the parliament, and the productive sectors of both countries. The goal was to discuss proposals for sustainability in agricultural production.
Ligia Dutra narrowed the contributions of the private sector for a sustainable food supply. She spoke about the role of CNA/SENAR System as a representative of Brazilian rural producers. Dutra also highlighted the need to support small and medium-sized producers to increase productivity and to meet the global demand for food.
Today, CNA represents 2 million farmers in 27 Brazilian states, providing technical and management assistance, among other initiatives. The agriculture and livestock sector is responsible for 15 million jobs in the country, with 76.8% of them in family farming. In this context, Ligia stressed the need for gender-based policies.
Diversity in the export agenda
Exporting is another significant challenge for Brazilian Farmers. To tackle it, CNA has organized several actions aiming at diversifying the Brazilian export agenda, as well as selling more products abroad. With this in mind, for example, the Agro.BR project was created.
Agro.BR is an initiative from CNA in partnership with APEX-Brasil to include small- and medium-sized farmers in international trade. “We consider that Brazil has a central role in the success of agriculture. And we think that it is necessary to emphasize small- and medium-sized producers to help them in the commercial promotion, to diversify our exports, and to add value to our products.”
Dialogue, research, and experiences
The trip to Denmark also included exchanges of experiences with relevant international agents, such as the company Food Nation, where we learned more about technologies developed for agriculture. On the last day, Ligia Dutra visited the University of Copenhagen to talk about research on sustainable agriculture. On the occasion, she could see in loco some research that has been developed in this field.
Pictures and videos of the trip are available on our social networks. The event was sponsored by the Brazilian Embassy in Copenhagen, APEX-Brasil, and the Danish companies Food Nation (Solutions of Tomorrow by Denmark), and Dakofo (Danish Grain and Feed Trade Association).